Zhenjiang · Jiangsu
Zhenjiang is the Yangtze city of three hills and one ferry — Jinshan's hill-wrapped temple, Jiaoshan's calligraphy, Beigu Hill's Three Kingdoms and century-old vinegar.
The short version
The place itself
Zhenjiang is a city of hills and one ferry landing, and almost everything China remembers about it happened on those four pieces of ground. The abbot Fahai dug gold out of Jinshan and became the villain of the White Snake legend; Sun Quan stage-managed his sister's marriage on Beigu Hill and lost both the bride and the army; Xin Qiji stood on the same hill and asked who would still vouch for an old man's appetite; and the poet Zhang Hu spent a night in a lodging house above the ferry and wrote four lines that every schoolchild learns.
It sits where the Grand Canal meets the Yangtze, on the south bank, and that is why it was fought over for three thousand years. The name is either a prayer or a threat, depending on which story you believe: either it was added to the river's name as a lucky charm against flooding, or the Song court named it for the place that guards the river crossing. Either way it has been in use for over 800 years, and the older names — Yi, Zhufang, Dantu, Jingkou, Runzhou — are the ones you meet in poetry.
What you see now is a compact, unhurried city with a lot of literature attached to it and not much ceremony. The temples are working temples, the museum is free and closed on Mondays, the riverfront on Changjiang Road is where the city walks in the evening, and the old ferry street has been given over to restaurants and inns without being turned into a film set.
It is also a very cheap city to eat in. Breakfast is a bowl of pot-lid noodles, a plate of crystal pork, shredded ginger and a splash of the local vinegar, and the whole thing costs less than a ticket to anywhere.
Pins are plotted from real latitude and longitude on a 5° graticule. This is a schematic orientation diagram, not a political map — no boundaries are drawn.
A temple built so densely up the hillside that from any distance you see the monastery and not the mountain — the phrase is 'Jinshan temple wrapping the hill'. Forty-odd sites inside: Fahai's cave, the White Dragon cave, the first spring under heaven, Furong Tower, the Jade Belt Bridge. The gates face west, which is unusual, and there is a story about why.
A street at the foot of Yuntai Hill with Tang and Song paving, Yuan and Ming stone pagodas and late-Qing pavilions layered on each other, and the names of famous men still legible over the stone gateways. It holds the densest, best-preserved concentration of monuments in the city — the 'cultural vein' of Zhenjiang, as the local phrase has it.
An island in the Yangtze facing Xiangshan across the water, named for the hermit Jiao Guang who hid here in the Eastern Han. Its cliff carvings and stele forest are why it is called the mountain of calligraphy, and the Inscription for a Buried Crane, cut 1,500 years ago, is a national protected monument.
The hill that 'lies across the great river, its rock walls steep, its position secure' — the one the Three Kingdoms made famous. Every pavilion, path and rock on it attaches to a story about the Sun–Liu marriage, and the recommended route runs from Qinghui Pavilion through the iron pagoda and the 'first landscape under heaven' inscription to Sweet Dew Temple and the Lingyun Pavilion.
The collective name for Zhaoyin, Huanghe, Jia and Jiuhua hills south of the city, where scholars and officials from the Six Dynasties to the Ming lived and wrote. Bamboo, springs, deep valleys and the reading terrace and Zenghua Pavilion among them. ¥30, open until 21:00, and the quietest of the city's hills.
Every local will recite them: vinegar that does not spoil, pork jelly that is not treated as a dish, and a noodle pot with a little lid floating in it. The vinegar is 130-odd years old as a brand and gets better the longer it is kept; the pork is eaten at dawn with tea, ginger and vinegar, which is what 'not a dish' means.
Zhenjiang has no airport of its own, so you fly to Nanjing Lukou International (NKG), Sunan Shuofang at Wuxi, or Changzhou Benniu, and there is a direct coach from Lukou for ¥55. By rail there are two stations: Zhenjiang station on the Shanghai–Nanjing line, where since 2010 all high-speed trains leave from the south square and the classic trains from the old north square, and Zhenjiang South on the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed line, about 5 km from the centre, roughly an hour from Shanghai and five hours from Beijing. Coaches use two stations — the main terminal by the railway station has more departures and a wider spread of times, while the south station is marginally closer to the centre.
Local transport is the cheapest in the delta. Buses are ¥1 for anything up to 15 km, half that with a card, and a further ¥0.50 off if you transfer within 30 minutes — which can take a second journey to nothing. Cards are issued at the bus company, the office west of 359 Hospital, Jiangda hub, the Jinshan Park stop and Yingjiangqiao. Taxis start at ¥8 for 3 km, ¥1.8 for the fourth and ¥2.7 a kilometre after that; in the new district the flagfall is ¥5 for 2 km. The old lanes are too narrow for most vehicles, which is where the pedicabs come in.
| Month | Weather | Crowds | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 12°C / 4°C · cool, damp | Quiet | Good |
| February | 14°C / 6°C · cool, damp | Very busy | Good |
| March | 18°C / 10°C · clear and mild | Moderate | Best |
| April | 24°C / 16°C · clear and mild | Moderate | Best |
| May | 28°C / 21°C · cool, damp | Busy | OK |
| June | 32°C / 25°C · very hot, humid | Moderate | OK |
| July | 35°C / 28°C · cool, damp | Busy | Avoid |
| August | 34°C / 27°C · cool, damp | Busy | Avoid |
| September | 29°C / 23°C · very hot, humid | Moderate | OK |
| October | 24°C / 17°C · clear and mild | Very busy | Best |
| November | 18°C / 11°C · clear and mild | Quiet | Best |
| December | 13°C / 6°C · cool, damp | Quiet | Good |
Two days is the honest length and the local guide says so. Day one is the three hills and a crossing: Jinshan in the morning, Jiaoshan after lunch, Beigu Hill in the late afternoon, and Xijin Ferry at dusk, which is when it is best. Day two is Nanshan and the museum, plus the riverfront on Changjiang Road. A third day buys Maoshan, the Taoist mountain 40 km out with the largest Laozi statue in the world, or Baohua Hill in Jurong; a fourth is best spent crossing to Yangzhou by the car ferry at Guazhou, which takes foot passengers and is much more fun than the bridge.
Plan these days properly
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It is worth a stop of its own, and two days is right rather than generous. The three hills and Xijin Ferry are genuinely different from what you get anywhere else in Jiangsu, the museum is free, the food is distinctive and cheap, and it is one of the least crowded historical cities on the Yangtze. Treat it as a day trip and you will only see Jinshan.
Vinegar that does not spoil, pork jelly that is not treated as a dish, and a noodle pot with a lid in it. The vinegar keeps improving the longer it is stored and never turns; the pork is eaten early in the morning with tea, shredded ginger and vinegar rather than as a course; and the noodles are cooked with a small wooden lid floating in the pot, which supposedly stops the broth boiling over while letting it breathe.
Pot-lid noodles first — the city's breakfast, and the reason for one of the three wonders. Then crystal pork with ginger and vinegar, crab-roe soup dumplings, and the river fish: the three fish of Zhenjiang along the Jiangxian street by Jinshan, plus deboned silver carp head. Jiangxian Street sits at the foot of Jinshan, and the biggest house on it is Jinshuiwan.
Jinshan for spectacle and the White Snake legend, Jiaoshan for the calligraphy and the ferry ride over, Beigu Hill for the Three Kingdoms and the view down the Yangtze. Most travellers rank Jinshan first and Beigu Hill second, but Jiaoshan is the one that feels like an island, and in autumn its 160 mu of osmanthus are worth the trip alone.
The car ferry from Guazhou takes foot passengers and runs across to Zhenjiang, and although the Runyang bridge is faster the ferry is the better memory — call 0514-87317999. By road the two cities are close enough that the local itineraries run Nanjing, Zhenjiang, Yangzhou and Suzhou in four days without difficulty.
You will hear it, and you may struggle. Zhenjiang dialect is a mixture of northern Mandarin, Wu dialects and Yangzhou speech, and visitors from outside usually find it hard. Mandarin works everywhere, so do not worry about it.
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